Exchange DistributionGroup Alias vs. secondary EmailAddress

Question

Where is the difference between

Set-DistributionGroup testgroup -Alias testgroupalias

and

Set-DistributionGroup testgroup -EmailAddresses @{Add="[email protected]"}

Why documenation saying only 1 alias is possible?

Answer 1

It is because alias in the Microsoft Exchange context is different than generically saying email alias.

From the MSDN Document on Active Directory fields, you can see that aliases are stored in the MailNickname field of AD user objects and mail enabled groups and act as an alternate way for you to reference a user or group.

These are however different than what is set via the -EmailAddresses parameter. These are full internet email addresses i.e. [email protected] and will work properly for both users in the Exchange environment as well as people in other companies/organization.

You can only 1 alias but you can assign many alternative email addresses.